


Long Time Coming

by Mickleditch



Category: Japanese Actor RPF, Tenimyu RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Cuddling & Snuggling, Denial of Feelings, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Old Friends, Oral Sex, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Temporarily Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 05:47:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14037501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mickleditch/pseuds/Mickleditch
Summary: He's loved this man for such a long time. Too long for it to be quite sane, probably.





	Long Time Coming

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't know them or anything about their thoughts or opinions. This is all lies (apart from Konii's divorce and I don't know why that happened).

Kotani's well over thirty now. Some days he doesn't think he looks it, and other days he gets the faint sinking feeling that he almost certainly does. 

When he remembers the look on Risa's little flower face the evening he asked her to marry him, he can't help remembering at the same time how incredibly over-thirty it had made him feel, because getting married had always felt to him like something that suddenly becomes completely appropriate, and not something you just haven't thought out properly, after you pass a certain age marker. Except that he hadn't thought it out, had he? Or maybe he'd thought about it too much, and come up with all kinds of logical reasons why it was such a great idea, and tried to ignore how his heart seemed to refuse to agree with that.

On the gray, flat morning, sometime in early winter, when they both knew it was over - that maybe it had never really started - they'd sat and cried together because they both cared and couldn't make it work.

"I love you," he'd told her, meaning it.

She'd sniffled a little. "I know. But there isn't a way, is there?" She tried again. "For you. There'll always be... something. Missing."

"Something missing," Kotani repeated. He thought, then, that he'd understood more than what Risa had actually meant. 

"Something I can't give you. And you can't give me. So there can't be any way. For us."

He'd felt very over-thirty then, too. Definitely not like a chirpy teenager any longer. 

So he probably should have given anyone a very wide berth for a long time who still makes him feel as nervous, messed-up and crazy as one inside.

*** *** ***

The papers come through quickly. Kotani more or less sleepwalks through signing them and the brief visit to the office. They agree for Risa to take Chobi, so her mom can help out with doggy-babysitting. They clear out what they've mutually accumulated over the last year and a half (has it been that long? Has it only been that long?)

And, just like that, he isn't married anymore. 

Acutely aware of the sudden silence, he fills it up with work. "I don't know why you didn't want to talk to Maimi-san instead," he tells them, at Theater Guide magazine, "she's the leading lady _and_ she's prettier than me," and they have a laugh at that. The interviewer stubs out butt after butt as he rattles through questions about the _Nettai Danshi_ revival.

"You're a singer outside of the theater, as well."

Kotani tries to decide whether that's a lead-in to a new topic, and finds himself hoping it is. He still never feels as though he gets to talk about being in a band often enough. "I've met people who'd disagree."

His grin's returned. "Have you proved them wrong now?"

"That's up to the audience to decide, but I'm not sure I want them to tell me, in case I never dare open my mouth again. I'd rather keep on performing and stay ignorant and happy."

"What would you have done if you hadn't gone into show business?"

"Professional player with the Giants!"

"Really?"

"Definitely, if they'd have me! I have actually faced up to the fact that that's not likely to happen any time soon, though."

"Did you play in school?"

"My father was the biggest fan. So I have all these happy memories of playing baseball with my dad, and there's a little part of me that regrets not trying to follow the career he'd probably have most loved me to."

The interviewer lights another cigarette with the one that he's almost totaled. "Everybody has regrets, though, don't they? Things you'd do differently. Missed opportunities. It's how it goes..."

*** *** ***

Heading back on the train, he fights a small psychological war with his phone for a while, and, finally, the phone wins. He wakes it up and scrolls through his notifications. Missed calls, two from the agency and one from his sister; a few texts. Three replies from Tomo to Kotani's original reply to Tomo's drunk text last night, telling him he was drunk and that he'd call him in the morning. Tomo will go on texting like a crazy guy whether he gets an answer or not, but Kotani's always too nice/soft to ignore him completely.

He scans his Twitter alerts quickly, slightly shamefaced that he's not really reading most of them. When nothing special jumps out at him, he gazes at the screen for a few seconds more with something like disappointment, and a weird kind of relief. He laughs, inwardly, at himself, because hadn't he been on a train, too, when Aiba's new account had first jumped up at him? He'd fussed over his tweet, adding and deleting a smiley emoji four or five times before deciding to leave it in.

_Can I follow you?_

It had been the first thing he'd said to him in a couple of years, and the single, lame, thing he could think of to ask right then.

 _Like you're not following me already? lol_ the reply had come back, too flippant. Too hard for Kotani to know whether the only reason he hadn't been ignored was because by tweeting a public account from _his_ public account, he'd made it so he really couldn't be. He suspects that, because Aiba didn't tweet him a second time, but he's still sitting there on Konii's list of followers.

What Kotani could have done himself this morning was ignore his phone when it chirped at him again, and definitely ignore Zukki's text about the 'Tenimyu Alumni Association'.

*** *** ***

In Starbucks, after Tomo's text. _(Heading out. Need caffeine. Emergency!!!)_

"I want to see him - and I don't want to see him. I don't even know if he wants to see me, socially."

Tomo just stares. "Damn, Konii, don't tell me we're talking about who I think we are? This is still going on?"

"Looks that way, doesn't it? Sorry."

"So how long's it been? Since whatever happened with the two of you, happened? Not that you've ever told me exactly what did happen. Or didn't."

Kotani opens his mouth to tell him exactly how long, then stops, wondering if carrying a torch for one person for that amount of time is a good way of making himself look pathetic. He doesn't know whether Tomo would tell him that, but he'd still feel it. "Long enough that I should be over it by now."

"So shouldn't _he?"_

Surprised, Kotani looks up. Tomo shrugs.

"Never say never."

"I didn't. He did, though."

"Things change." Tomo swirls his coffee around the cup. "People change."

"I tried to change things before. And I ended up wrecking everything." Kotani frowns tiredly, before an old part of his brain remembers that frowning's supposed to give you lines. Wasn't it Aki who contributed that morsel of wisdom? He used to tell Kotani a lot of things like that, usually after sex. In the end, it had been a lot about sex, and not very much about love. Basically the opposite of what he and Risa had been about.

He's greedy. He wants it all, sex _and_ love. Maybe that makes him an idealist, or maybe it just makes him a mushy, die-hard romantic. 

Sitting here in the window is like getting to be the audience instead of the actor for a while, watching the great big story outside play out under a hundred neon spotlights. But it still doesn't have anything on the one that Kotani keeps rewriting in his head. Love, drama, tears. That story's got it all.

*** *** ***

In the restaurant, crammed in under the low ceiling. There's metaphorically empty seats, people who couldn't make it tonight and are missed, but they fill them up with laughter and beer. By the time they max out at twelve, Iorin's had enough that he keeps telling the same joke about a sloth over and over, Kaji and Kenken, half-draped on each other's shoulders, are getting lost in a duet, and Wada's making a rigorous attempt to hold Shirota's attention rather than just letting him join in with it. Zukki, for his part, is trying to make himself heard with some comment about Adachi's glass.

Juri-kun bends his head in towards Kotani. "Check out Zukki still trying to helicopter-parent Osamu-chan. When he could probably drink Zukki under the table."

"Mother hen," Kotani says, softly. A half-sweet, half-sinking feeling worms in the pit of his stomach, as he remembers doing his own kind of hovering. Had he been so obvious? If Zukki and Adachin were a running gag among the rest of the cast because Zukki treated Adachin like a kid brother, how big of a joke had he and Aiba been? 

Aiba, who'd accepted the same long-time-no-see hug as everybody else tonight, and then proceeded to sandwich himself tightly between Zukki and Kazuki at the opposite end of the table and spend the rest of the evening looking absolutely everywhere else in the entire room except at Kotani. 

Shirota makes the toast, and everyone whoops and pounds on the table in mock/sincere appreciation.

"Here's to the thirteen years since we all met playing a bunch of middle-schoolers - and the next thirteen - and the thirteen after that! It never gets old, and it goes on forever!"

And Kotani feels like he can't argue with him on that one.

*** *** ***

The little party winds up around midnight. Everyone's well lubricated, and they start to call cabs for the people who are most likely to just fall asleep somewhere on the subway and not be found before morning. Eventually the trickle leaves only Kotani, Aiba, Date Kouji-kun and Kenken. Searching for his coat, Kotani discovers that it's managed to migrate two or three seats down over the course of the evening.

"Ah! There - sorry, can I -?"

The sleeve of Aiba's soft fuzzy sweater manages to brush Kotani's hand as he hands him the coat. Kotani nearly fumbles it.

"Ma-kun was using it as a pillow," Aiba informs him. "He's a married man now. He's always exhausted."

"No stamina!" Kenken calls, from the end of the table.

Kotani makes himself smile, brightly. "It was a good night, wasn't it? Like the old days!"

"Yeah," Aiba says. He sounds a bit distracted. For the first time, he looks Kotani in the eye. It's like someone slides a small knife into his belly and then kisses the wound. "Kaji told me you split with -"

"Risa."

"Sorry." 

Tact and indirectness have never been Aiba's strong points, and if they had been, he wouldn't have been Aiba. And then Kotani would never have loved him.

"Guess I got married too young. I should probably do some growing up before I try it again!"

Aiba doesn't laugh along with that. "Are you going to?" he says, after a moment. 

There's a silence that reaches brand new levels of awkwardness. Eventually, Kotani speaks. "No. I was a little bit crazy for a few years and thought I could. But I couldn't." 

"Shut up," Aiba says. "You're not crazy. You're just -"

Kotani takes pity on him. "Yup - pretty good at complicating things. Aren't I?"

Aiba fidgets in the way that you do when you really want somebody to stop talking. "That's in the past now. Forget about it. We're old friends." Abruptly, he sticks out his hand, holding Kotani's gaze as if he's trying to force some message across. "Right?" 

A kind of bleak relief washes over Kotani. He's being offered the easy way out, if he wants to take it, and he momentarily hates himself for giving in. He shakes hands. "Yes. Right." 

"So give me your number, ne?" Aiba says, quickly. "I'll text you." He hasn't quite let go, yet, and his fingers feel soft and cool against Kotani's. 

His hair is shorter, and his teeth aren't crooked anymore, and he looks _chic_ , like they say in English, rather than overly teenage-fashionable. But his hand feels the same. The same size. The same grip. The same feeling Kotani gets when he holds it.

*** *** ***

_I said he'd be over it,_ Tomo replies, when Kotani texts him.

_He's too over it. He wants to pretend nothing happened._

_So wtf did?_

_I came onto him. Actually, I tried to kiss him._

_Like he'd never been hit on by a guy before._

_I don't know,_ Kotani texts back. _There was more to it than that._

_What else is there to it?_

Kotani sighs. He runs his thumbs up and down the sides of his phone a few times, in the absence of anything else to touch. Something to ground his thoughts; he could even have done with the homely feeling of Chobi's small wet nose pushing into his palm. He'd never thought that he'd be feeling Chobi's absence in the apartment as much as Risa's. He tries changing the subject.

_He called. He wants to hang out again. As old friends._

_And the problem with this is -?_

_I've always gotten mixed messages from him. I don't want to mess this up a second time._

_If he flirts with guys, he gets what he deserves._

_No. He doesn't._ Kotani hits send, then, after thinking about it, texts again. _I don't know. It's how he is._

He sits back in the chair and looks out of the window at nothing for a few moments. Aiba had flirted with everybody in sight in their Tenimyu days, male and female. He'd liked the attention, no matter what kind it was or where it was coming from. And, yet, Kotani thought that, when he flirted and teased back, Aiba had responded with a different kind of warmth that was playful and shy at the same time. Had he just imagined that, after all? Maybe he'd built it up in his memory; fed it too often with hopes and regularly-thumbed dreams.

His phone squeaks, and he looks down at the screen. 

_So if things don't work out again, we can just date each other. It'll be cool._

Kotani smiles. _Thanks, Tomoya-kun. I love you too._

*** *** ***

The tabby-and-white cat twines itself around Kotani's legs as soon as he steps into the living room, its crying chatter the sole legacy of what's probably a Siamese ancestor somewhere way back. When he bends down to fuss it, a slightly smaller twin muscles in beneath his hand, evidently feeling left out. He clucks to them, tickling the first under the chin it lifts and gently pulling at the other's tail.

In the kitchen area, Aiba ducks into the fridge and pulls out a plastic plate which he carries across to settle on the low table next to their tea cups. "Go on, help yourself. I have to feed my cats first."

Dropping onto the couch, Kotani leans over the plate with considerable interest. "You made wagashi?"

"No, I _bought_ wagashi. Are you really telling me you pictured me cooking?"

"It's a cute picture, though," Kotani offers. Letting the taste of mochi fill his mouth, he watches Aiba slit open a foil packet and empty the contents onto a pair of dishes sitting on a mat printed over with smiling kitty faces. The cats observe the process, but stay glued to Kotani's ankles.

Aiba waits for a few moments before pointing at each of them in turn. "You... and you... have no sense of gratitude!"

"It's like on TV, ne? Cats always know who the good guys are!"

"That's dogs, Konii."

"Oh, is it?" Kotani grins. "Sorry." He strokes the back of the closest animal. "So, do I get an introduction?"

Aiba crosses the room and scoops one of the cats loosely into his arms. "This is Mikko," he says, and, at the second cat, "that's Mio." He rubs his cheek against the top of its head, and the cat purrs, and butts him gently. "Softest, gorgeous thing," he says absently, into its fur, then glances up, looking momentarily pink in the face, as if someone's caught him naked.

Mio checks, springs, and settles into Kotani's lap, turning in a tight circle. Inspired by this, Mikko twists away from Aiba, and, dropping to the floor, searches for a route up Kotani's leg. Aiba sticks his hands on his hips, huffily.

"Traitor!"

*** *** ***

Aiba shows up at a _Nettai Danshi_ performance the next week, and Kotani goes to see _HEADS UP_. So does Wada, in the second case. So maybe all of this is because the cast are loving on each other really hard at the moment? Kotani doesn't much care. All he cares about are the evenings of soaking up Aiba's smile and the days of listening to his laugh.

They still haven't discussed anything, and Kotani can feel the slow undercurrent of it, like a sea monster waiting to surface, but he pushes it resolutely away, focusing on having his Aibacchi back in this way that the universe has suddenly gifted him.

The thing that it seems that he can't have, the thing that's missing and changed and that he wants so badly that he physically aches for the lack of it, is _touch_. Not a backslap or a brief hand on the shoulder, but the kind of touch they had when they all lived in each other's personal space on a daily basis. The kind of touch where you didn't hesitate before wiping the latest person's tears, or slinging your arms around them. The kind where you didn't even think about it because it was so normal and you knew before asking that it would be okay.

Kotani tries. But as fast as he can slip into that shared space, Aiba skips out of it again, as skittish as a leggy colt, talking nineteen to the dozen and filibustering any questions. And Kotani, who should be happy, feels himself getting more and more depressed as he falls harder and harder back in love. 

He should have stopped it. Or said something. But it's like sitting in a tepid bath; he's conscious that the water's too cold, but it's still a lot warmer than it is outside. And there are much worse things than picking up the phone to the slightly rougher edge Aiba's voice has acquired over the years that makes him sound sexy, and hearing him say _Konii_.

*** *** ***

"I want to hear one of your songs," Aiba announces, "in person."

"You might regret suggesting that!"

"Why would I? Are they all deep and pretentious?"

"Hardly!"

"Then I want to hear it," Aiba says. He waves his hand at Kotani's acoustic guitar. "The unplugged version. Indulge me."

It feels more like an order that Kotani hasn't got the willpower to refuse, but since when has it been that he can refuse Aiba anything? If the younger man asked him for the moon, he'd still do his best to gift wrap it for him. 

He loops the guitar's strap around his neck and clears his throat, ducking his head and smiling a little, suddenly more self conscious than he's ever been on stage or in front of a camera. He traces the comfortable, familiar shape of it, and the few hairline cracks in the belly, before the usual muscle memory absorbs him and he picks out the first chords.

The song itself is something Kotani put together a while ago, but he still isn't a hundred percent happy with the lyrics. But it isn't a piece of his heart that he's wrung out, or something he's ever really intended to be for +PLUS, unless it ends up as a bonus track somewhere. It's a cute, quirky little number that the words came into his head for in about ten minutes. He sings, without trying to constantly gauge Aiba's reaction. 

He doesn't think he's ever sung for anyone who he wanted to like it more.

When he finishes, he presses his hand gently to the instrument until the sound dies away. He doesn't look up until he sees movement at the corner of his eye, and realizes that Aiba's come to squat in front of him. As Kotani watches, transfixed, Aiba reaches out and traces his fingers slowly along the strings until they come to a halt against his own. 

"Teach me to play that," he says.

*** *** ***

Kotani had started using his Twitter regularly for two reasons. The first was that the agency had browbeaten him into it, telling him that the fans liked to see them all as accessible, and the second was that, when he went on hiatus from +PLUS, it was the easiest way to keep up with everybody. He hadn't completely realized until he left the studio for the temporary-last time how every photo from a live that jumped up on his time line was going to make him feel like he was outside looking in, and how he was going to miss having been part of a unit again.

"I told Takeshi-kun to bully you into drinks on Friday," Moto says, at rehearsal, when they're taking a break. He's leaning dangerously far backwards on two chair legs with his feet on the table in front of him, trying to catch tossed gummy candies in his mouth. One bounces off of his nose, and he rubs it fitfully before turning with a grin. 

"Oi! I don't need bullying! I'm a sociable guy!"

"Yeah, a sociable guy who's kind of disappeared from the radar lately."

Kotani holds up his hands in defeat, grinning back. "Okay! Okay! On Friday, you have exclusive access to me. I promise nobody's going to steal me away."

"Anyone likely to try?" Takeshi queries, in an offhand way. Tomo, for once in his life, doesn't say anything, but makes a big show of messing with the keyboards until Moto's distracted enough from the original topic to start aiming random candies at his head.

Being nothing but 'Konii' makes Kotani feel lonely. He prefers being 'Konii and [insert-a-whole-bunch-of-other-people-here]'. Just 'Konii and [second-person]' isn't altogether bad, either. Maybe he wants to belong to something that's bigger than he is on his own. 

Maybe that was one of the other reasons he'd got married.

*** *** ***

Glow of the TV; a quiz show that had been the last thing that Aiba was flipping past before Mikko knocked the remote off of the seat and lost it somewhere under the couch. The cats have already figured out that Kotani's as soft a touch as Aiba and that there's no way that anyone's going to make any serious attempt to move them. They lounge on the two humans, trapping them: Mikko on Kotani's lap, Mio draped around Aiba like a scarf, intent on giving his ear a tongue bath.

"I can't move," Aiba says. "This sucks."

"It's okay," Kotani says, by way of appeasement. Trying to create more room for Aiba between himself and the back of the couch, he shifts his legs as far as he can, which isn't very far. Mikko seems to be made of lead rather than fur. "The show's not that boring." 

"Yes, it is. I don't want my brain assaulted by it." 

"Don't watch it, then," Kotani suggests. He pulls the cushion out from behind him and puts it over Aiba's face. Aiba bats it away, drowsily, with a soft snort.

_"Thanks."_

"That's me. Always happy to help!" 

Aiba turns slightly into him, as if to relieve a crick in his muscles. He gets a bit quieter. Kotani raises his arm and slips it behind him, just so he'll be more comfortable. Deep down, he thinks it's probably more than Aiba's okay with, but it's nice; comforting. 

He listens to Aiba's slowly evening breathing. He _knows_ that Aiba isn't okay with being close like this, not like he was once, but he still can't seem to stop himself doing it.

Yet, miraculously, Aiba kind of sighs and rests his head on his shoulder so that Kotani feels the warmth of his breath on his neck, the shape of his body fitted against that of his own. It feels the same as it did the last time that Kotani held him in his arms ten years ago. To his surprise, sex doesn't cross his mind. His heart just seems to hush to a kind of happy peacefulness. Aiba's fingers work slowly and unconsciously in a loose fold of his shirt, like a kneading kitten; like something searching hungrily for affection. 

Kotani can give him that. He can give it in spades, until Aiba's overflowing. 

Very, very lightly, he pulls a few strands of his hair between his fingers. It feels feather-soft. A lump comes into his throat, and refuses to dissipate when he swallows. He settles Aiba more closely into him. On the screen, the contestants are being given very obscure kanji and are trying to write the words in kana. The cats purr, like small generators throbbing, the sound mingling with the TV chatter.

"I missed this," Aiba says, sounding like the words are coming up half through sleep, and, silently, Kotani answers, _I missed you._

*** *** ***

At the Shibuya station intersection, on his way to a meeting at his manager's office. Wet nylon domes are already bumping Kotani from all sides as he waits in a curtain of drizzle: see-through convenience store, blue polka dots, bubblegum. It's the kind of day that everybody else always seems kitted out and ready for.

Kotani's not a 'ready' person. Things always rush up on him and bowl him over, right when he's expecting them the least. 

When he first fell in love with Aiba, Aiba was a kid and Kotani wasn't much more, and none of them had been ready for the crazy momentum that had carried them through the days. Ambitions had run high and emotions higher. One or two relationships had grown into something, and a lot of others had morphed into friendships equally as binding, but there weren't many people who'd walked away from their stint on the Tenimyu roller coaster without being changed by it.

He wasn't really sure whether he'd fallen in love or lust with Aki, but there'd been enough lust there to last for a couple of years before it burnt out and they'd agreed that they weren't ready for anything definite or long-term. Aki's face had shut down tight after that conversation, but a month later it got out that he had a new boyfriend anyway, which left Kotani feeling vaguely sullen from the ego-bruise, but mostly oddly relieved.

When he'd fallen in love with Risa, he'd been ready and eager for big changes in his life, and she'd seemed like the best way of setting all those wheels in motion in one move. Like holding your breath and jumping into the deep end of the pool; sink or swim. He'd thought she was worth the risk, but in the end he hadn't been ready, or willing, to walk away from the part of himself that kept him from changing. 

And now Kotani's come full circle. It's like being on a merry-go-round: setting off in the opposite direction, only to find yourself heading around to the same place. 

Back to where he started. Back, maybe, to where he always belonged.

Sooner rather than later, he intends to find out if that's true.

*** *** ***

Kotani follows a lot of Twitters. He never fails to be amazed at how many people he remembers working with and how many he can call 'friends'. His natural instinct is to like everybody until they give him a good reason not to. Friends' Twitters, then friends of friends. Like a spider web, radiating outwards. It takes time to trace some of the threads back. The ones nearest the center are the strongest. But they're all joined together somehow; all connected.

Tomo likes his Tenimyu reunion tweet as a joke. Kotani fishes out a bunch of old backstage photos and texts them to him with stupid captions. Tomo just replies with, _You've got it bad._

_I've got WHAT bad?_

_Three out of four of those pictures star Aiba-kun in some way and you need to ask me that?_

Kotani scratches the back of his neck, self conscious under the accusing eye of his phone screen. _He liked having his picture taken back then._

 _Sure,_ Tomo texts back. _Whatever._ Then, after a brief pause, _So how's it going, anyway?_

_Good. I think._

_Which means he still hasn't come around and put out._

Kotani texts a frowning emoji. Tomo replies with a confused one.

_You don't want him to put out?_

_Obviously, but I want the rest of it too._ Kotani smiles a little, softly. _You know me,_ he texts. _Moonlight and roses._

_I'm moved. And you're still desperate._

_Getting desperate enough to say something. I don't think I can take this much longer._

Amazingly, he only gets one more reply from Tomo.

 _You'd better,_ it reads.

*** *** ***

Kotani peeks with interest into a couple of the plastic tubs that Aiba offloads onto his kitchen counter, pleased to find ham and crab, which would probably be his first choices. "And you told me you didn't cook! What else wasn't true, that's what I want to know?"

"I don't _cook_. I do have to eat." Aiba takes more containers from a large paper carrier. "And hiyashi chuka isn't cooking, which is why I could bring all this stuff over." 

"We're having chilled ramen in March?"

"Don't be discriminatory. You know the best thing? You have to have ice cream afterwards." Aiba nods at the bag.

Kotani delves in and surfaces with a box of pink popsicles. "I think you're officially mad."

"I'm unique," Aiba says, ending the debate there. 

"You are," Kotani says. He smiles. He has something soft and jazzy on the radio, good to talk over, and the atmosphere is... well, nice. He likes it a lot. He's missed this, too; this easiness. No strain, like nothing ever went wrong between them. It seems like a miracle, when he thinks about everything that has and hasn't been said. 

"Let's see," he says, "we have food, and music, and more food, and - " He pretends to check each one off on his fingers, then stops for dramatic effect. 

"Good company," Aiba finishes. He glances over his shoulder and smiles back, a bit too quickly. 

"The best," Kotani agrees, nodding for emphasis. They both hesitate for a moment. On impulse, he reaches out and catches Aiba around the waist, pulling him away from the counter and whirling him in a little circle in time with the radio. Aiba yelps in surprise, then laughs, the tension leaving his shoulders.

"Baka! What about the food?"

"It can cut in if it asks politely."

"You moron," Aiba says, but he lets Kotani waltz him across the kitchen. Gradually, their steps peter out until they're not doing much more than shuffling on the spot. Under Kotani's hands at the small of Aiba's back, he can feel the transference of movement through the muscles; the loose grace, still, of a dancer's body. They live there for a time, Kotani's arms around Aiba, Aiba's arms around his, swaying gently as one, Kotani watching Aiba carefully, intently, and Aiba doing his best to avoid direct eye contact. 

Kotani loves this man. He knows it now like he's always known it. He loves every part of him: his hair, his mouth, his nose, his chin; the swing of his hips; his thoughtless, needy heart. He wants him so much he feels like he'd do almost anything.

Instead, he says, softly, "Fuji and Taka-san always move well together, ne?"

"Yes," Aiba says, sounding somewhat distant. 

He looks flushed. When Kotani reaches up unconsciously to brush a hot cheek with his fingertips, his head jerks up. His eyes narrow, and something suddenly flashes through them that resembles fear. Like one of his cats, tensing itself for escape.

"Aiba-chan -"

"Don't," Aiba says, sharply. There's an unsteadiness in his voice. "Just - _don't!_ Don't say anything -"

Kotani can't help himself. It's all coming out again, spilling over, and he's going to tear apart from the inside out if it doesn't. "I love you, Aibacchi. I always have done."

"Don't!" Aiba says again. He twists violently out of Kotani's arms and takes a few steps backwards. "Why did you have to say it? Why did you have to do it again -"

Something cold and horrible worms in Kotani's belly. "I'm sorry -"

 _"Stop it!"_ Food forgotten now, Aiba is heading for the genkan, his faster speed keeping him a dozen steps in front of Kotani. He begins to pull on his shoes, jamming his toes in, and fumbling blindly with the laces as he raises his head. "Why did you have to tell me that?" he says.

"Because it's true," Kotani says, helplessly.

"Then you should have lied!" Aiba shouts. The words seem to ring a little. "Couldn't you do that? Couldn't you have lied?"

Kotani shakes his head. After a minute, he says, "No."

He hears the brief rattle of some of the lighter things on his shelves after Aiba's slam.

*** *** ***

Kotani stands, looking at the door, for a long time. Being only a closed door, it doesn't suggest very much other than, despite all his promises to himself, he's royally messed up a second time.

His head, though, is starting to come up with a different picture. A picture that, for the first time, makes quite a lot of sense. So much sense, in fact, that it keeps him standing on the edge of his genkan, blinking stupidly, until the light fades completely and the sky outside the apartment changes from greys and sepias into dark, and he's still standing there when he hears his text notification sound.

He walks over to where he left his phone lying on the table.

 _I can't see you anymore,_ the box on the screen says. 

Kotani looks at it. Then he taps Reply.

_I always thought a lot more of you than dumping somebody by text._

There's a virtual pause. Then another text comes. _I'm not dumping anybody, because there isn't anything going on!_

Kotani doesn't reply to that. Instead, he closes the message thread, pulls up the number, and calls it. Hears the tinny, monotonous ring.

"I don't want you to call me, either," Aiba's voice breaks in.

"Where are you?"

Aiba doesn't answer for a moment. "Sitting in the car outside," he says eventually, sounding petulant. 

Kotani listens to the close-up, slightly nasal sounds of his breathing. "Aibacchi," he says, after a while, "you're a coward."

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"It means I think you do want me to call. And a lot more, too. Because if you really didn't, you wouldn't still be out there. You wouldn't have even been here tonight. You'd have told me flat out that you weren't interested _years ago_. But all you've ever done is give me _so nearly_ what I want, then push me away and run when it gets too real for you. So I think you're a coward." 

A choking noise comes from Aiba. "God, Konii, I'm straight!"

Kotani can hear his own pulse fluttering in his ear where it's pressed against the phone. "No you're not."

_"What?"_

"Well, maybe you used to think you were. Before we met."

"I have girlfriends!" Aiba shoots back. _"Lots_ of girlfriends!" He suddenly sounds very young, like a middle-schooler being teased in the locker room and trying to prove himself to his friends.

"I was married up until three months ago." 

Aiba goes quiet, like he's been run to a halt; no arguments left, all his options exhausted. Kotani lets the silence hang for a minute. Then he says, softly, "If you don't want me, come back up and tell me. To my face. Come and say goodbye." 

And he closes his eyes and ends the call, hoping he won't regret it. 

*** *** ***

A couple of the lights on the landing are out, but a broad stripe of illumination pours in through a window from a streetlamp. A narrow strip of Aiba comes into vision; an indistinct shape that brightens as Kotani opens the door wider, adding the glow from his own apartment.

Aiba lifts his eyes. To Kotani's faint astonishment, they're red from half-dried tears. Aiba was always the last one out of all of them to cry. 

"I lied," he whispers, and Kotani reaches for him, draws him inside, and shuts the door again behind them.

Standing, in each other's arms: "Did you believe me, before?" Kotani says, "I love you," and then Aiba's scrubbing at his face with the heels of his hands, forgiving Kotani and asking to be forgiven, tripping over his words until Kotani can't remember what the problem ever was in the first place and presses his finger against Aiba's mouth to stop them coming out.

Aiba's skin is hot against the side of his mouth when he presses their cheekbones together, and he only has to turn his head a little to kiss it. He kisses the smoothness of his neck; kisses his cheeks, his eyelids and his nose, like he's always wanted to. Finally he kisses his lips, still tasting trickled-down salt, and Aiba kisses back, halting and tentative in those first few seconds, then urgently. _Kisses back._ Kotani can feel his heart thumping against the wall of his chest, crazily hard, and he wonders how he could ever have lived without this, how he can ever live without it from now on.

Suddenly he wants to do more than kiss. He wants to grind into the hips shifting restlessly against his own. He traces his lips over the curve of Aiba's ear, feeling the answering shiver and his own desire rise even higher in response. It's like a feedback loop.

"Sleep with me. Sleep with me - please -"

Aiba's eyes are very big in his face. "I'm scared of this, Konii. I'm _really_ scared."

Kotani lets his shoulders rise and fall under the grip of Aiba's fingers. "So am I," he admits.

And somehow, at that moment, he knows it's going to be okay.

*** *** ***

Naked, newly shy with each other, Aiba sits on the bed while Kotani kneels between his legs, running fingertips down them, punctuating the trails with a kiss to the soft skin inside each knee. He thinks about how Aiba seems to get more wonderful over the years, more ripe and lush. He can't figure out what else is different about him, and then he realizes that it's that he looks nervous, unsure of what to do or expect, and he struggles to remember another time when he saw Aiba look openly nervous. He's always been the poised one, leaving Kotani grinning and goofy and awkward at his side.

Now he can walk a little way into Aiba's head. He remembers his first time with a guy. How it stopped it being all _maybe I could be's_ and _what if's_ and made it so definite. He remembers, too, how to make it right.

"You know what I want to do now?"

Aiba tenses. "What?"

Kotani smiles. "I want to give you a big hug!"

A look of such gratitude washes over Aiba's face that Kotani's sure that he feels his heart break in a brand new spot to match the dozen cracks that are already there. He leans forward, and Aiba leans to meet him, and Kotani cradles him on his shoulder.

"It's only Konii," he says, "it's only me."

"It's you," Aiba repeats, like he's trying to make up for all the times that he couldn't let himself say it in that way. Then, softer, "It's always been you."

When he stops trembling, Kotani draws back and kisses him. As tenderly as he knows how and as deeply as he's ever kissed anyone. Then he takes him in his mouth. 

Aiba stiffens, gasping, hands flying up to crawl and scruff in Kotani's hair, trying to push him away, trying to pull him closer. Kotani steadies him, holding a sleek hip with one hand and gripping himself with the other as he closes his eyes and tastes the velvety, hard-softness of another man again. Aiba's keen of sheer pleasure is all he could have asked for and more.

"Konii -! Oh, _God -!"_

Kotani slides his tongue over and under. Aiba jerks, and his fingers tighten. His hips rock involuntarily, his thighs taut. Something like a wordless protest escapes from his throat, but not any kind that seems to be telling Kotani to stop. He doesn't want to stop. He doesn't want this burning, lovely sweetness to ever stop. 

"I love you," he says again, letting Aiba fall just far enough away from his lips that the words ghost over him when he speaks and make him quiver. Then he bows to his task. They rock slowly together, like that, to the stop-start rhythm of the traffic flowing steadily on beneath Kotani's bedroom window, thirteen years' worth of need building and cresting until Kotani's mouth and hand take both of them over the edge and down into a release so deep that Aiba shouts out and Kotani feels breathless and amazed at the same time.

*** *** ***

When they can't see each other, over the days and weeks that follow, Aiba fills in the spaces by texting a lot, even beating out Tomo for number of notifications on Kotani's phone. Kotani replies with such sappy messages that Aiba eventually sends a sick face emoji.

 _You dork,_ flashes up on Kotani's screen. 

_Ah, so a dork's a guy who talks about his feelings. That's good to know._

_You can do that in a non-dorky way. Except you can't. Because it's you._

_Maybe you love me because I'm a dork._

_Maybe,_ Aiba texts, then seems to go quiet. Kotani waits for a minute to see if he'll expand on the idea, but nothing's forthcoming. 

_Did I say something?_

_No. It's fine. This is still all just really weird to me._

_It's okay. There aren't any rules. I just want us to be together._

_I do too,_ comes back. 

_See? We already agree on everything. That's pretty romantic._

_MAJOR DORK._

Kotani laughs softly. He tries to picture Aiba at the other end of the line, allows himself to remember his smell, the slipperiness of his skin against his own. His old fantasy feels extra sweet now that it comes with the tangibility of having actually happened, the way even disappointments can be savored when things turn out all right in the end. _What are you doing now?_ he writes.

_Missing another call from my manager. He's going to be pissed._

_Tell him you've been busy, reading up on how to sue him._

Aiba opts for an eye rolling emoji this time. _I should tell him I'm halfway through moving in with my boyfriend and really scare him._

Not for the first time, Kotani wishes it wasn't so hard to read intent behind text messages. He decides to play it extremely safe and respond with a _lol._

_Or maybe I should wait for him to be sitting down before I ever say anything like that._

Kotani's stomach does an odd little flip. _So you think you might find him sitting down sometime?_

There's something of a pause. Then Aiba texts, _I don't know. I might have to wait for a while. Until I've thought about it. I want to make sure he definitely is._

Kotani smiles. Another text pops up. 

_Is that okay?_

He's loved this man for such a long time. Too long for it to be quite sane, probably. 

_It's okay,_ he writes back. _I can wait forever,_ and, vaguely, unashamedly, he thinks that Tomo is going to laugh at him so hard if he ever hears about that one. 


End file.
